


The Second Time Around

by tendervittles



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Book Spoilers, Canon Divergence, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post - A Dance With Dragons, Rape/Non-con Elements, Stockholm Syndrome, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 13:38:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1781041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tendervittles/pseuds/tendervittles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-ADWD.  Theon gets a second chance at life...<br/>* Revised chapters 1 & 2 *</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> Part Theon Greyjoy character exploration, part self-indulgent horrible trash.  
> I fully acknowledge that the plot of this is actually really fucked up when you think about it, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. <3
> 
> (Also I may end up revising this chapter and re-posting it, but for now it is what is it, which is probably awful.)

The men inside and outside the castles walls are too preoccupied with the movements of the other to notice when she finally slips out past the gates.  It took many hours of digging through snow and frozen earth, but finally she was able to wiggle under and out, into the swirling winter winds beyond.

The men she encounters pay her no mind and their presence is irrelevant to her as well.  She is single-minded in her task and sets to work immediately, without even pausing to see if she can swindle one of the vanguard out of a bite to eat.

She may be only a dog, and a young one at that, raised in castle and kennel, but still she knows… _when the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives_.

She stills for a moment and looks towards the edge of the wolfswood, dark and foreboding before her.  She is the lone wolf now and may very well die in her quest.  Then the wind shifts and Kyra catches the scent.  She lowers her head.  She moves into the trees.

She follows them all the way from Winterfell, on the trail of the boy who smells like her and her sisters.  She trudges along, sometimes trotting, never running; there is no need to hurry.  She is a hunting hound and has been trained for this since puppyhood.

Kyra pauses to squat by the base of a tree. There are no more leaves clinging to the branches, but even the bare boughs offer some protection from the falling snow and Kyra’s piss falls on the rotting brown mush that is all that remains of the colorful autumn foliage.  She presses on.

It’s cold, in the woods, with drifts of snow piled high.  Sometimes her weight cracks through the crust of ice and she falls up to her snout into a mound of white, inhaling icy crystals up her nose.  Then Kyra flounders and fights her way out, snuffling and huffing to clear her nasal passages.  Sometimes, in these moments of struggle, Kyra looses her focus and remembers another man.  His scent doesn’t mirror her own; he smelled like meat and horses and those strange odors that men devise and keep in little bottles.

 _Ramsay_ , that one is called, and he often would lead Kyra and her pack on fun romps, praising and rewarding them when they brought down the day’s quarry.

There hasn’t been any game for her to run down in some time, and hunger prickles at her incessantly as she plods along. Still, she keeps her nose to the ground and stays on the trail.  There have been several new smells to contend with, the odor of men, moving in the same direction as the trail she follows.  That, and her wayward brother travels with another, someone who still smells like innocence and summer. 

Kyra isn’t as familiar with the scent of the girl, but she has pursued the aromas of human females before, it’s what she was reared on, and it only adds to her motivation.

The sun has risen when she finally reaches the caravan that has moved slowly through the forest.  Kyra picks her way through the stragglers, men who pause too long before each step forward.  No one notices that Kyra doesn’t belong, or else they are just too woebegone to care.

They are just a bit further up the column, resting in the back of a wagon.  Her brother is there and Kyra barks excitedly; that draws the men’s attention, but she hardly notices.  At last, the hunt is over and she can bring her lost brother home.

* * *

 

The king had commanded they be given a place out of the wind and snow.  Theon Greyjoy and Jeyne Poole, with girl with the wrong colored eyes, had been confined to the back of a wagon for the time being, at least until the draft horses collapsed or were butchered for their meat.

They weren’t chained or forbidden from wandering the camp, but they kept to their place.  There was nowhere else to go.  Anyway, Jeyne wasn’t a prisoner as Theon was.  He wasn’t fool enough to think Stannis Baratheon, so committed to justice and ever seeking the support of the northern lords, would let Theon Turncloak’s crimes go unpunished.  Asha had confirmed his suspicions.

“I’ve pleaded with him to execute you beneath the heart tree, as Eddard Stark would have.  Beheading is a quicker, easier end than fire.”  The old Theon would’ve had a sarcastic, quick response to that.  Present-day Theon only nodded, resigned.

He was only sorry that dying meant leaving Jeyne on her own, but she would be heading to the Wall soon enough, to be reunited with her “brother,” Jon Snow.  They had so far kept up the ruse that it was Arya Stark who had fled Winterfell. Jon would know Jeyne for her true self, but by then she would be out of immediate danger.

How he wished he could go with them. He could even take the black; the Night’s Watch wouldn’t turn him away.  Their vows would be easily kept.  He could father no children as it was.  What else was left for him?

A noise is intruding.  The insistent, excited barking of a dog.  Theon’s heart lurches painfully in his chest. The girls’ barking has always heralded the arrival of Ramsay’s hunting party in his most masochistic daydreams. Truth be told, he has spent more time imagining Lord Ramsay’s wrath upon realizing that he has been tricked out of both his new bride and favorite pet than he has worrying about whatever Stannis intends to do with him.

He is so lost in his fears that, when a force hits him at full tilt, he is sure it is one of Ramsay’s fists.  But no, it is a body, one covered in fur and dusted with snow.  A warm, wet tongue laps at Theon’s face.

“Stop!  Stop it!” Jeyne screams in terror.  _Reek, it rhymes with shriek_.

But Theon’s initial fear has passed and he is pushing the pup off and righting himself again.  She is harmless, just overly excited, tail wagging so hard her whole body wriggles.  Theon reaches out a hand to scratch the pup behind an ear, when all at once he freezes. His stomach drops.

The dog is wearing a collar, one that he recognizes. The remaining fingers of his right hand unconsciously go to his throat, where the same adornment still encircles his own neck.  Now he recognizes this beast, the latest edition to Ramsay’s kennel.  _Kyra, he named the bitch after Kyra, because she put up a good fight._

Jeyne must recognize her too, because she says in a hushed voice, “Theon, it’s not… _him_?”

“I don’t think so.” He replies quietly, stroking Kyra’s fur.  There is no shouting from the rest of the camp, no call to arms as there would be if Ramsay’s hunting party of Roose Bolton’s army were upon them.  “We would know by now if we were being attacked. She must have followed us on her own.”

 _Yes, yes_ , the dog’s eyes seem to say, _I found you; I’m a good dog_.  He moves his hand to Kyra’s head, scratching her behind one ear.  “What are we to do with her?” Jeyne asks hesitantly. Theon finds he can’t tear his eyes away from Kyra.  “Keep her,” He finally replies, “We’ll keep her.”

That night Kyra sleeps beside Theon in place of Jeyne, who curls up on the other side of the wagon.  Theon knows she disagrees with his welcoming of the dog and agrees even less with his decision to keep her close.  “Some of these men have already tried to eat their dead.” Theon tries to explain, “She’s barely more than a pup; she could never defend herself against them.”

_She and her sisters kept me warm when I was freezing in the Dreadfort’s kennels; I shared their meat with them and they never minded the smell of me.  And she’s named after a girl whose death I’m responsible for._

Jeyne doesn’t argue, just looks at him with mild reproach.  He suspects any worse defiance has been beaten from her by now and then he feels badly for making her uncomfortable.

That night, Kyra sleeps beside Theon in place of Jeyne, who curls up as far away from the two of them as she can get. Theon tells himself she’ll come around.

* * *

 

“Here,” He says the next morning, offering Jeyne a strip of dried horsemeat.  Kyra’s eyes track the morsel.  “Why don’t you give this to her?  She’s friendly.” Jeyne looks from Theon to Kyra skeptically.

“It isn’t her fault, what Ra—he—made her do.” The name _Ramsay_ sticks in his throat.  “He made us do terrible things too.”  At that, Jeyne nods and accepts the meat. The strip is small, about two inches long, and Jeyne holds it out by the very edge, using just two fingers, and she flinches when Kyra accepts the gift.  “Oh.” Jeyne says softly, “She is gentle.”

Theon nods.  “She’ll let you pat her too.” He says, demonstrating. Haltingly, Jeyne reaches her hand out again and places it lightly on Kyra’s head.  Kyra closes her eyes, overwhelmed with the attention. Her tongue lolls from her mouth and she pants happily, breath visible in the frosty air.  Jeyne meets Theon’s eyes and smiles.

That night they all sleep together, Theon in the middle, Jeyne and Kyra on either side.  Jeyne throws an arm across Theon’s stomach, presses her face into his back, and sleeps soundly.


	2. Interludes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I cannot write anyone who isn't Theon or Ramsay. -___-

“Theon, walk with me.”

He nods and slides himself from the back of the wagon he shares with Jeyne.  Truth be told, he’s been avoiding Asha for days now.  Sometimes, he catches her looking at him with pity in her eyes and it stings.  Kyra hops down after him and trots at his heels as he follows his sister out of earshot of Stannis’s men.

“How are you doing?” His sister asks gently. She reaches out awkwardly and squeezes Theon’s shoulder.  He shrugs her off and shuffles out of reach.

“Theon!” Asha sighs, exasperated already, “I’m trying! I know what—whatever they did to you—I know it was awful.  I’m sorry for that.  I’m sorry for not being there, for—for Winterfell.”

“I’d sooner not speak of that.” Theon mumbles, kicking at the snow with the toe of his boot, his eyes on the ground. Even his own sister speaks first of his act of betrayal.

“Theon, what _happened_ to you?”  Asha approaches him and Kyra growls, deep and low, in the back of her throat.  “I know they tortured you, but you don’t act or look like my brother anymore.”

She is trying to help, and deep down he understands that, but Asha trying to be motherly is like a bad jape.  She wants to take action, but Asha’s idea of action involves the only children she’ll ever know—an axe and dirk.  She is ill equipped to give him comfort and anyway, Theon isn’t even sure what sort of comfort he needs.  He kneels down to stroke Kyra and the dog looks up and licks at his face.

“Theon,” Asha pleads desperately, “Talk to me.” He feels sick. This isn’t how his sister is supposed to talk to him, and she uses his name entirely too much. _You have to know your name._   His sister reaches out to touch him again, which sets Kyra off barking hysterically.  Theon stares hard at the ground until finally his sister stalks off in a huff.

* * *

 

He expects it but even so, when it finally happens, he finds he is not ready.  Jeyne reaches for him in the dark, tentatively at first, slipping her hands underneath his furs to caress his chest.  Most of Theon’s wounds have healed, but his body remains a pitted map of scars. He pretends to sleep; he doesn’t want to hurt her.  But then he feels her dry, chapped lips against his own.  “Jeyne…”

“Theon,” She breathes against his mouth, “I always thought you were so handsome… and now I know you are also strong and brave. Let me… you know they taught me how…”

She is practically on top of him and her hands drift lower.  Finally, Jeyne’s fingers (she is lucky enough to still have all ten) dip below Theon’s waistband. It’s all too much. He flinches away, waking Kyra beside him.  She senses his discomfort and growls, pressing her body flush to Theon’s side.

“Jeyne, _please_.” Theon gasps.  The sharp note of terror in his voice only adds to his shame.  He is thankful for the dark, thankful Jeyne can’t see his face, which is burning and surely flushed red. 

He can’t let her know, can’t let her feel what’s been done to him and he shoves her away in his desperation.  Theon must be getting some of his old strength back, because he pushes too hard and Jeyne falls backwards, falls hard and hits her head against the side of the wagon.  Kyra thrusts herself between their bodies.

Jeyne stares at Theon, wide-eyed, one hand massaging her head.  She checks her fingers for blood; there is none, but to Theon it doesn’t matter.  “Jeyne… I’m sorry… I’m so sorry.  I just _can’t_.” He stammers.  Without waiting for her reply, he clamors outside.

Theon hurries away as fast as his mangled feet allow. He isn’t sure what gods he believes in anymore, but he is thankful for the night fires lit for the red god; Stannis’s men keep them burning until dawn and there is enough light to see by. He doesn’t join the men around the flames (he can’t stand the way they look at him), but moves a few paces away and takes a seat under a tree.  He watches his breath steaming in the air for a few moments, until he feels a cold nose nudge against his ear—Kyra.

Theon wraps his arms around his dog, holding her close, both for warmth and comfort.  “I shouldn’t have done that.  She’s barely more than a child.” Theon murmurs into Kyra’s fur. All at once the tears spring to his eyes and he is unable to hold them back.  Kyra cleans his face with her tongue as he sobs.

A short time later, Theon is spent and shivering. Kyra stays loyally by his side, although he is sure she feels the bite of the cold as well. Wearily, he pulls himself up; Kyra rises too.  Theon is unsure where to go; he doesn’t want to frighten Jeyne further by returning to sleep in their wagon, but there is no place else.  He looks at Kyra, who is watching him hopefully. He swears the look on her face is beseeching him… _Is it time to go now?_

Theon shakes his head; he must be imagining things. Kyra is a good dog, but still just a dog.  _The direwolves are all gone._

* * *

 

He begins to spend more time alone, just walking, Kyra ever at his heels.  Theon finds the dog’s presence comforting, the way he once found comfort in curling up among her sisters in the Dreadfort’s kennels.  Kyra seems happy enough; she frolics through drifts of snow and chases invisible prey, until Theon turns to start back.  He hates to leave Jeyne by herself, in spite of the new tension between them.

Kyra darts in front of him and pushes against his legs with enough force that he almost falls.  “No, Kyra.” He scolds, but the pup is insistent. She barks, backs up and looks at him expectantly. 

Theon holds out his hands before her, helpless to understand.  “I don’t know what you want.” He says.  As if she understands, Kyra darts forward to grab hold of his pant leg, careful not to catch skin with her teeth, and pulls.  He takes a step in that direction and Kyra dances, jumping up on her hind legs.  He recognizes that excitement.

“Oh, no, Kyra… No.” He says, shaking his head. His shaggy, still unwashed hair falls in his eyes.  “Not me… Not me.”  Kyra whines, and her dark eyes are sad.  “I’m sorry.” Theon says.  It barely occurs to him, how ridiculous he must sound, practically in tears and apologizing sincerely to a dog.  “I’m sorry.” He repeats, turning away.  “I’m sorry.”

Kyra barks as he hurries off as fast as his maimed feet will carry him.  Bouncing off the trees, the noises echoes.  To Theon, it sounds like a chant.  It goes _Reek, Reek, Reek, Reek, Reek_.

* * *

 

Kyra doesn’t understand.  It’s still cold, among the men, and there is little more to eat here than there was on her trek through the wolfswood. Yet no matter how much she insists, her brother will not let her lead him home.

She knows he doesn’t have the nose to sniff out the way, and men fear the winter and the woods in a way unknown to her, but they are only a short ways away.  Still, she stays by his side.  No one gets left behind.  So for now, they remain a pack of two.

* * *

 

“They’re sending me away tomorrow.” Jeyne tells him, “To Jon, to the Wall.”

Theon nods; he knows all this already. “They say there will be battle soon.” She continues, wringing her hands, “I worry for you, Theon.”

They are sitting with their legs dangling out of the back of their wagon, eating the day’s allotment of food.  At least, Jeyne is eating.  Theon has packed his cheeks with his own portion, waiting for his saliva to soften it enough for him to chew with his broken teeth.

“I’ll be all right.” He mumbles through his mouthful, “I have Asha looking out for me.”  Asha would make sure they only severed his head from his neck instead of burning him alive.

That wasn’t fair.  Asha was trying her best, the way she always had with him. His fate was his own doing.

Theon chews to avoid continuing the conversation. Kyra watches his mouth, though she’s already had her share.

“Do you think he’ll be disappointed?” Jeyne asks, “That it’s only me and not—not the real Arya?”

Theon shushes her frantically, looking around. But they are lucky and no one has heard.

“Jon is a good man.” He replies quickly, “He knows you. He won’t turn you away.” Jeyne nods, but she doesn’t look all together reassured.  Theon leans over and puts an arm around her reassuringly.  Then he kisses her.

The old Theon Greyjoy kissed like a conqueror, with easy confidence.  The new Theon’s lips are uncertain, dry, and awkward.  Their noses bump together and he can feel the scab where frostbite was cut away from Jeyne’s face.  Theon’s eyes are squeezed shut in concentration.

“Theon?” Jeyne asks gently, when they break apart, “Do you—do you want me?”

Theon shakes his head, much like a dog. Jeyne looks hurt. “I’m sorry.” He mutters, disgusted with himself, “I don’t know—maybe I would have—Jeyne, it doesn’t matter. I can’t, even if I wanted to. He took my—“

He gestures between his legs helplessly, willing her to understand.

“Oh.” Jeyne murmurs.  Then her eyes widen.  “ _Oh._ ”

“Theon… I’m so sorry.  I didn’t—I didn’t know.”

“You couldn’t.” Theon replies, “It’s fine.”

Even if he was still whole, he didn’t want Jeyne, not truly.  It had been wrong to kiss her; he wasn’t sure what he meant by it, but he intended to use her when he did it, because tomorrow she was leaving and they would probably never see each other again.  _Reek, Reek, it rhymes with weak._


End file.
